Friendship's Crown of Verse 




O. C. AURINGER 




B(iok^_iA5_I 



\°[G'1 



Friendship's Crown of Verse 



friendship's 
Crown of Verse 

Being Memorials of Edward Eggleston 
O. C. AURINGER 

Author of The Road-Builders, William McKinley, etc. 




George William Browning 
1907 



[Iu.^i»HY of CONGRESS 
I iwo Copies Received 

I Cufes/I KXc, No. 



COPY 0. 



r- 



Copyright, 1907, by O. C. Auringer 



CONTENTS 



A DESPOILED DAWN 

DEAD ON THE HEIGHTS 

A GLANCED ARROW 

LOVE'S TRAIL OF GRIEF 

THE INSATIATE SOUL . 

BATTLES TRANSFERRED 

TIME, THE MAN-BUILDER 

A WIDOWED PARADISE . 

THE WANING SOUL . 

THE REILLUMING LOVE . 

.THE REFORMER 

IMPERFECTION AND TRIUMPH , 

THE HOST AND THE IDLE TALENTS 

THE HUNTSMAN 

THE FINER LAW 

THE MERCHANTMAN 

LOVER AND WARRIOR . 

HEART OF THE REPUBLIC 

THE DUAL LIFE 

GLIMPSES OF THE GOAL 



5 
9 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 
17 
18 
19 
20 
21 
22 
23 
24 
25 
27 
32 



CONTENTS (Continued) 

PARADISAL GUARDS 35 

THE CORE OF BEAUTY 36 

FICTION AND TRUTH 37 

THE KINGDOM OF NIGHT .... 38 

THE DREAM 39 

FRIENDLY RIVALS 40 

SPRING RAIN . 41 

WOMAN 43 

PAN-MINSTREL 44 

THE ROSE SPEAKS . . . . . . 45 

POSTSCRIPT 52 



Friendship's Crown of Verse 



FRIENDSHIPS CROWN OF VERSE 



A DESPOILED DAWN 

" Come into the temple of morning, 

But softly with temperate feet, 
Undoing within you all scorning, 

All hatred and anger and heat. 
For the portals are holy with warning 

That lead to this chosen retreat. 

After the ebbing and flowing 

Of dream-tides both bitter and sweet, 

The tolling of death-bells, the blowing 
Of bugles of joy in the street, 

And the vision of seraph-plumes growing 
From a fiend's wrinkled shoulders complete; 

*' And all the wild joys and the sorrows 

Of a region fantastic and strange, 
Where todays have no kin with tomorrows, 

Whose lords are Unreason and Change, 
Come, arise ! for the spirit that borrows 

From morning soon ceases to range. 

*' Bid farewell to Sir Sleep and all dreaming, 
Let your soul say farewell to the wight ; 

Bow him out of your courts with his seeming 
Bonhommie as comrade forthright ; 

You have drunk with him moonbeams in streaming 
Full cups from the flagons of Night." 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



'Twas the voice of the dew-sprinkled priestess 

Who comes in advance of the sun. 
Her high-priest. Like foam flakes when ceased is 

The noon from deep waters that run, 
Are her feet leading up where the feast is 

That begins with the darkness undone ! 

O cool feet and lovely ! And speaking 
Again to me — " Come from your bed ! 

The temple's high minstrels are wreaking 
Their songs on the court air," she said, 
^Till the gold priest responds to their seeking 
In his mitre of heavenly red." 

One firm hand she raised like a flower 

Toward the clouds that hung looped in the east — 
' They are curtains through which in his power 

Ere long shall reissue the priest ; 
Yonder hill pointing up like a tower 

Is the altar ; the incense " — she ceased, 

And smiling then breathed on me sweetly. 
Like a wind half in earnest, half jest ; 

Then a thousand warm odors rose fleetly 
From the east and the south and the west. 

And gathered and mixed till completely 
In one piercing attar compressed. 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



But the north has no odors, and therefore 
He sent forth a young wind instead, 

Whose wings took the incense up, wherefore 
It was strewn under feet and overhead, 

Till it flowed in thin lines o'er the fair floor, 
And aloft in curled streamlets outspread. 

And the priestess stood sober. She lifted 

Her head and her look to the east, 
Where the cloud-curtains stirred and were rifted, 

And were changing, half crimsoned, half fleeced 
And her peace was a spell. Like a gifted 

Tall sibyl her presence increased 

Till "Behold, it is he," cried the goddess, 
(She is priestess and goddess in one) 

And she rose in her height from her bodice 
Till a titaness' stature was done — 
*' Look ! look ! There his mitre — his rod is ! 
'Tis the sun ! 'tis the sun ! 'tis the sun ! " 

Then down on me out of her splendor 
She smiled all triumphant, complete, 

For she thought I would spring then to render 
What tribute of gladness was meet ; 

But she changed when she saw me, all tender 
With tears, bowing down at her feet. 



8 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



And she guessed not, for yet 'twas unspoken, 
The grief that so humbled my head — 

" He is gone on whom sunrise has broken 
So often beside me ! " I said. 

" The comrade to whom I was yoken 

Through sundawns and sunsets, is fled. 

*' He is fled, and the morning shall never 
Again know the trace of his feet, 

He is gone at a call sent to sever 
His soul from a vision so sweet : 

Sealed up is his hearing forever 

From the dawn-music's rapturous beat. 

" He was one of a twain, I the other. 

Who stood for the dawn and the light, 
And the hope and the music, as brother 

To brother lends joy in the fight. — 

O the night has been ill thus to smother 

That heart in the flush of its might I 

"He is gone who was spirit and feeling : 
They remain who cannot understand ; 

To them is the sky but a ceiling, 

The bright earth but granite and sand ; 

For time's old disorder what healing ? 

For the warrior what strength to his hand ? ' 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



DEAD ON THE HEIGHTS 

All men have marked below life's mountain tops 
How broad and varied was his soul's domain, 
With earnest crags, the fruitful fair campaign, 

The hollows brimmed with warmth, the cloistered 
copse ; 

But few have seen what height on height outcrops 
To stretch that region heavenward o'er the plain ; 
Or known how native to his ear that strain 

Which hymns the Highest through a thousand stops. 

Not his the travail of some pilgrim wight 

Who buys with pain a space whereon to spread 
A narrow death-couch upon sacred sod. 
Familiar there, he has but said " good night," 
And drawn around the curtain of his bed, 
And laid him down upon the breast of God. 



10 friendship's crown of verse 

A GLANCED ARROW 

Like parent birds in summer on a bough, 
The nestlings having flown away in air, 
I saw you side by side, a pleasant pair. 

Courting content that genial hours allow 

'Twixt then and winter. But I look, and now 
Where are you? O the ruin everywhere ! 
Shattered the covert and the bower laid bare 

Wherein you sealed with peace so rich a vow. 

'Twas that dark hunter whom all men detest 
Made all this waste ! Grief sets before mine eyes 
The cruel scene, — the heartless hunter's glee. 
The shot, the fall, and o'er a lifeless breast 
Tumult of fearful wings and piercing cries — 
I too lament : that shot has wounded me. 



friendship's crown of verse 11. 

LOVE'S TRAIL OF GRIEF 

Bright bird of dawn, ambassador of May, 

Robin, who sing'st from thine accustomed tree, 
'Twas thou that gavest him the golden key 

Each morn to gain the treasures of the day ; 

'Twas thou didst set the tune of work or play 
That led his steps up toil's acclivity. 
Or round 'mid ways of young anemone 

In spruce-spread haunts or pastures fresh and gay. 

Did I mistake, or was it that I heard 

But now a note of sorrow in thy song, 
A wail for him that's gone ? Nay, O thou bird ! 
It was my heart that trailed that strain along 

Through all my woven walk — the voice divine 
Of inmost grief that I mistook for thine. 



12 friendship's crown of verse 

THE INSATIATE SOUL 

His body was a bark superbly planned, 

Built for all seas and rigged with helm and sheet. 
To cleave a track amid the human fleet 

That plies the waves where life's wide seas expand. 

His soul the master was, whose pliant hand 

Drove the tall pinnace forth through wintry sleet, 
Or watery worlds of sunshine bland and sweet, 

High trafficker for bales on every strand. 

Alas, the master's zeal has sunk the craft 

Too long and far adventured ! Deep she lies 
Drowned hull and spar beside her native mole. 
The form through which his spirit wept and laughed, 
Toiled hard, did good, wrought virtue and grew 
wise. 
Here lies consumed by the insatiate soul. 



friendship's crown of verse 13 

BATTLES TRANSFERRED 

A dozen paces from the shore descried, 

The carven-pillared house which is his tomb 
Gleams like a temple 'mid the hemlock gloom — 

The hemlocks that he loved and glorified 

With fine imaginings. Housed with his bride, 
Whom the South slew and sent him pale with 

doom, 
He lies, world-wanderer, in that narrow room, 

Unmindful of our hope betrayed, belied ! 

Belied ? Even so, if Hope consort with dust ; 
But no ! if, joined to the fresh bridegroom Life, 
Far off and hence on forward trails she flies ! 
'Tis but his bones these marbles hold in trust ; 
He lives and laughs in some far glorious strife 
Where man is still the theme of fresh emprise. 



14 friendship's crown of verse 

TIME, THE MAN-BUILDER 

First rose a pencil of slow mist that drew 

The wavering outlines of this little cape ; 
Then came the builder Ocean with his crew, 

And gave compacted substance and a shape ; 
An age, and then the Glacier with his plane 

Smoothed the harsh rock round to this pleasant 
dome; 

And last the busy furnishers, the Rain, 
Snow, Beams appeared, and lo, a fairy home ! 
And when 'twas o'er and finished didst thou come 

And dwell two crowning decadesj and art gone — 
What ! all this long incalculable sum 

Of time, to build one reign so soon withdrawn ? 
Four seasons toil to make one June rose sweet ; 
What ages, then, to crown man's life complete ! 



friendship's crown of verse 15 

A WIDOWED PARADISE 

Four seasons toil to make one June rose sweet — 
Briefest of joys, soon scattered on the grass ! — 
These wild cliffs touched with sunset ere it pass, 

Remain as then. The small wharf at their feet 

Still holds in gentle leash its quiet fleet 
Of shallops on dark waters still as glass ; 
That headland rising in its craggy mass 

The straggling causeway's eager clutch to meet — 

All are as then they were. But over all 
There lies the tender sadness of a tomb. 
The mournful memory of a faded grace, 

An air of joys departed with the Fall — 

'Tis that the rose of life has dropped its bloom, 
And passed the light and genius of the place. 



16 friendship's crown of verse 

THE WANING SOUL 

The rage for gold, the strife for power, the greed 
Of luxury — three vultures cursed of old ~ 
He saw them ere he died, with pinions bold 

Trail ominous shadows o'er his native mead. 

He in his dying heart foreknew the deed 

Our eyes now see, the strife, the trampled mold, 
The treacherous coup, and Honor lying cold, 

By foul things torn that wrangle while they feed ! 

O heart return ! Help us again to feel ! 

In our love's heaven how few large hearts now 
burn ! 
Bring back the seeing eyes, our manhood's weal. 

Our vision withers, we no more discern ; 
Restore us prayer our ailing hearts to heal. 

Prayer's fount doth fail among us — O return ! 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



17 



THE REILLUMING LOVE 

Return O heart! — yet not in that same guise, 
With that same presence once so fair to see, 
Like some tall flagship sailing prosperously, 

Flying o'er all the banner of emprise ! 

Come not as that imperial man, with size 
And port heroic, molded in a free 
Abounding nature's generosity, 

Magnificent with intellectual eyes ! 

But come in some high, strange and splendid way 
Out of thy new volitions, out of power. 
Out of thy place among the circles seven ! 
Of thy new wisdom send us down some ray 
Authentic, to rebuild our crumbling tower. 
The arm that helps us most must help from 
heaven ! 



18 friendship's crown of verse 

THE REFORMER 

The path of truth is paved with human hearts, 
And he that treads it hears a sound arise 
Of deep complaints and lamentable cries 

Where round his feet a troubled throng upstarts. 

"Why spoilest thou our rest?** mourns one, and darts 
A look reproachful out of dream-fed eyes ; 
" Ah, blind and cruel feet ! *' another sighs, 

" Bringers of grief that nevermore departs ! " 

Hence o'er his soul that shadow of eclipse 

Who oft the heartbreak bore, and shared the sting 
Of such as bled beneath his ministry ; 
And hence the marks of sorrow round the lips 
Foredoomed to speak the inevitable thing 
That cut him off from human sympathy. 



friendship's crown of verse 19 

IMPERFECTION AND TRIUMPH 

He was not perfect — nay, the world brooks not 
Perfection in her sons ! Should one arise 
Supreme above his fellows, great and wise, 

For him the hated furnace seven times hot ! 

He groped in dreams of power with such as plot 
How best to hold the earth and keep the skies, 
But waking late flung off the weak disguise 

And stood once more himself without a spot. 

For always near, neglected not forgot. 

His seraph-self, with oft-reproachful eyes, 
Went bearing splendid arms of paradise ; — 

The angel of his youth, his years' first lot. 
Soul of the lightning, hatred, scorn, disdain, 
The immortal aspiration and the pain. 



20 friendship's crown of verse 

THE HOST AND THE IDLE TALENTS 

He spread his tent within a lordly chase 

Which oak and spurge indifferently share, 
And made a feast and sat him down in place, 

And bade all kinds, the crippled and the fair ; 
And there were fig-cakes laved with honey-dew, 

And clusters giving perfume rich and faint, 
And apples mellowed where the warm winds blew, 

And musky wine in flagons carved and quaint. 

And when the lamps winked dim, and all was o'er, 
He rose and deftly robbed each nodding guest 
Of that peculiar jewel he possessed, 

To plump his robust wallet yet the more, 
While from the deep blue cavern of the sky 
Glanced through the tent-door many a diamond eye. 



FRIENDSHIPS CROWN OF VERSE 



21 



THE HUNTSMAN 

Into the monarch's aged wood he came 

With bow of gold, a huntsman keen and fleet ; 
All creatures having life he counted game, 

And harked the air for wings, the brake for feet ; 
Of wild wood things he learned each feint and wile — 

The noblest game he took with freest shaft ; 
And such as lurk and hide did he beguile 

With artful wisdom caught from their own craft. 

Thou wert that huntsman, and the forest old, 

God's good green world where thou didst walk in 



Thy knightly spirit was the bow of gold 

That launched thy wide-shed shafts of charity ; 
Thy prey thy fellows' hearts. So didst thou fare, 
Seeking for good — to find it everywhere. 



22 friendship's crown of verse 

THE FINER LAW 

I've seen him foremost in the rout of mirth 

What time the elfin bolts flew bright and fast, 
I've seen his creature Humor leap to birth, 

And run his stride 'mid laughter rich and vast. 
I've marked him when his thought soared like a bird 

That reaps the endless ether ; I have seen 
The deep eyes lighten when his ire was stirred. 

And scorn run furrows round the lips serene. 

Yet never have I known the frolic fire 
To shoot a single shaft intemperately. 

Or pride make discord in his mind's clear choir, 
Or passion cloud his spirit's minstrelsy, 

But everywhere apparent one could trace 

The finer law of gentleness and grace. 



friendship's crown of verse 23 

THE MERCHANTMAN 

He was a merchant to the task addressed 

Of bringing freight of gold from every land ; 

Coin of all climes was current in his hand, 
And yet he loved the home-stamped mint the best. 
The first he spent with unreproachful zest, 

And laughed to see its generous fruits expand ; 

The last in stock and bond at his command, 
He held, in fortune's treasuries possessed. 

Yet most unlike the miser of the tale. 

Who starved through fear lest he should come to 
want, 
Whom strangers found and buried with a sneer, 
He made each native talent to avail 

To furnish forth the one dear home and haunt. 
And crown its hearth with love and loving cheer. 



24 friendship's crown of verse 

LOVER AND WARRIOR 

He loved his land with deep and noble love, 

He loved her men and women, kindred hearts ; 

His love was not unmindful of her arts, — 
He called them irised pinions of the dove, 
Plumes of the bird of peace o'erarched above 

The tumult of the millstones of her marts ; 

He loved her sword when that wild servant starts 
Forth like a hand that flings away the glove 
To seize some wrong and smite ! O if denied 

The battle and the warrior's wide renown 

Through some slow-plotting treason of the flesh. 
Trod not his faith a field as wild and wide ? 

Toiled not his hope as grandly for the crown ? 
Rose not his ceaseless voice, a fountain clear 
and fresh ? 



friendship's crown of verse 25 

HEART OF THE REPUBLIC 
I 

New worlds are never won by cleverness, 
Nor ever yet did wit transport a state; 
And there are hurts no art can medicate, 

And wrongs no spell of intellect redress. 

Fail tongues and wisdom, powerless to possess 
The eden closed to knockings of debate, 
While impulse, blindly feeling, finds the gate» 

And faith, cloud-footed, stumbles to success. 

Not statecraft, but the universal heart 

Full-flooded, throbbing toward a fairer sway. 
Brings the new reign, the lordlier dynasty, — . 

As rapt Columbus, yearning o'er a chart. 
Launched in a vision, groping for Cathay, 
Fell on fresh empire in the western sea. 



26 friendship's crown of verse 

II 

America, my heart's fair holy land, 

Not few bold pilgrims of my blood have pressed 
Thy sacred soil in freedom's generous quest ; 

And well I know what zeal behind the hand 

Aimed the bright lance and swung the joyous brand 
That sang on helm and harness ! — that high zest 
Which thrice thy splendid hosts, in honor drest, 

Fired when the Paynim crescent lit thy strand ! 

Fierce Israel's hawk, Rome's falcon, and the wing 
Of Moslem vulture, sinister of dye, 

Have chased love's bird from Palestinian bowers; 

Ah, may no like dark creatures ever spring 
To hunt the lordly eagle from thy sky. 
So nursed in fire, O Holy Land of ours ! 



friendship's crown of verse 27 

THE DUAL LIFE 

The sun was floating toward his evening port, 
But here his beams had failed, so close the shade 
Was woven round the rugged mountain road 
That hour we trod together. Stalwart cliffs, 
Piled up in sheeted precipices, hung 
Impending over head, or stood aloof 
And looked upon us darkly as we passed. 
The track that coiled about their flinty feet — 
A compromise with iron dignity. 
Achieved by urgent muscles of past men 
And flung to meet some haven down the vale — 
Was carbuncled with rock and strewn with dust, 
A gray and vicious salt that stung the throat 
And wreaked its smarting venom on the eyes. 
And on the nether flank, with frequent thrust 
Of limestone pike and flinty spear-point, lay 
The rabble refuse torn by that sore toil 
From off the parent cliff. Gross plants there rose, 
And vampire vines clung round in poisonous coils. 
That springing caught and twined themselves about 
The pinnacles of weed, and made a tent, 
Storm-tanned and sere, to shelter that bad host. 
And all around was dim and pierced with chill 
At midday even. Darker now it was 



28 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



As farther toward his haven sailed the sun ; 

But over head a strip of tender sky 

Shone blue between the hemlocks and the crags. 

Then suddenly round an angle of the track 

We broke upon a hunchback — one so wild, 

So unimagined, so incredible 

In his affliction that our human sense 

Shrank instantly aside, as if ashamed 

To know itself akin to such a form. 

A giant's trunk piled massively on legs 

Fine as a child's, that tottered with their load ; 

Its head — if head it was the creature had — 

Glimpsed o'er the swaying mountain of a hunch 

Unkempt and huddled like a beggar's pack ; 

Its clothing, of no shape, no color, naught 

Save what resembled hideously a skin 

Working in awful wrinkles as it walked, 

Slunk round it vilely, powdered o'er with dust, 

As sedge with multitudinous parasites, — 

A shape most like a demon's ; and around 

The gloom as of a prison without vent. 

It heeded not our footsteps as we came, 

And when, escaped from that grim coign of earth 

Wherein our souls had breathed precarious air. 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



29 



We broke into the brightness of the day, 

Our feet charged on to pass the creature by, 

That we might gain the valley, — and forget. 

But as we passed it, see ! it lifted up 

Slowly, amid the horror of its shape, 

An angel's face before us ! Features drawn 

In lines of tenderest sensibility 

Beamed on us with a light of other worlds ; 

And cloudless eyes smiled forth caressingly 

In gentle recognition ; and the brow. 

Curled round with locks all golden like a god's 

Was bright with fine intelligence, and smooth 

With the perpetual flow of radiant thoughts 

And impulses divine, — a seraph's head 

Set on a demon's trunk ; and o'er it shone 

The incomparable blessing of the sun. 

And through the charm that flowed about the lips 

Issued in words the greeting of the hour, 

And such a voice 1 O would the world had more 

Of speech divine as this ! Consummate tone 

Flushed high with breathing music of a soul 

That sang through it as through an instrument. 

With thrilling voices such as this, O earth. 

Sing — sing to us ! and we with softest steps 

Will follow thee forever where thou wilt ! 



30 friendship's crown of verse 

And we responded with an equal heart 
Though not with equal music, as we bowed 
And so passed on — but not until our souls 
Had lower bowed before a human spirit 
In earth-long bondage lovely to the last. 
And while I mused thereon with many thoughts, 
Out of his instant wisdom spake my friend — 
What meaning do you gather from this book, 
This strange epistle we've been set to read, 
New from some master's hand to speed our growth ? '* 
And I replied — " Three books of God there are. 
Through which He speaks to us — His written truth 
For all sane souls and noble to enjoy ; 
The picture-book of nature to instruct 
The child-man, pleased with such a glorious show ; 
And last, the rugged volume known as man, 
Most intricate in wisdom for the world, 
Most tantalizing, and the most misread. 
These are the books of God ; and, of the last, 
Today a shining page is rendered clear 
To our slow understanding, and the text — 
* Look carefully behind the coarsest guise, 
Brute earth may often veil the loveliest soul.* " 
"You've traced the paragraph aright," he said, 
" But did you note how proud the seraph's head 



friendship's crown of verse 31 

Reigned o'er the ruined body ? Strength, though mild, 
Yet splendid, constant, irresistible. 
Triumphant and immortal ! How reads this, 
Save that man's angel still is at the helm 
Of this racked vessel of humanity. 
However winds may quarrel, waters smite. 
And some bright day shall guide it safe to port. 
And which of these twain aspects, dual shapes. 
Shall fast and final in our memory 
Remain, to the forgetting of its mate — 
The trunk, so fierce, repulsive and deformed, 
Or the mild radiance of the seraph's face ? 

So shall the jewel of man's soul, being first. 
Burn off its earthly matrix, leaving it 
To sink and molder out of memory. 
While she herself glows beauteous at the last. " 



32 friendship's crown of verse 

GLIMPSES OF THE GOAL 

*' All things in springs of spirit have their rise, 
All things in gulfs of spirit find their close ; 
And onward the great stream of magic flows, 

And every murmuring runnel forward flies 

To swell the mightier marvel and surprise ; 

Our lives are shadows which the Arch-Soul throws 
O'er undulating gardens flushed with rose — 

The glad world sown with splendor as the skies. 

And time shall be when, greeting face to face, 
No longer shall our eyes as now behold 
Mere form and color and opacity, 

But spirits postured in their native grace ; 

When, tongues fallen useless while the worlds 
waxed old, 
Soul unto soul shall speak immediately. 

The flowers, the grass, the uncomplaining weed 
Thy plowshare buries in soft sepulchres 
Are creatures blest, and sweet interpreters 

Of that small spirit biding in the seed ; 

And thou the plowman stalking o'er the mead 
A spirit art, and royal kin of hers, 
Chief prophet made of beauty's ministers. 

To preach through all the world a heavenly creed. 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



33 



A lamp, alas ! whose flame forgets to burn ; 
Priest — of a moldered altar, perished rite ; 
Prophet — to nurse a tongueless prophecy ; 
Seer — with blind eyes that nothing can discern ! 
Run, lovely fire ! flush eye and soul with light. 
And sting the silence to a trumpet's glee ! 

*' How long wilt thou be kinsman to a clod, 

The sloth-bound brother of the rock and tree, 

Stolid, content in such society — 
That merely, not a master, not a god ? 
What edict dooms thee to espouse a sod 

And bring forth lumpish children unto thee. 

Blind in the lightning of futurity, 
Dumb hands that burrow, and loose feet that plod ? 
Awake and suffer ! Hath not man a soul — 

Breath, wings, fire, harmony — a world that lies 
Sublime within him, peerless, endless, whole, 

A wonderland of beauty and surprise ! 
Wake heart and arm and come ! help us to roll 

The glad sphere forward into happier skies ! 

*' Open thine eyes upon thy house and see 

A fairy palace sparkling in the light, 

Whose base is thrust 'mid mines of richest night, 
Whose stones are miracle and mystery. 



34 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



" Its beams are odors woven deliciously, 

Its windows crystal leaves where winter's sprite 
With brush of moonshine spreads his fancies white, 
Its roof a cave of dreams and fantasy. 
And in the midst thy hearthstone : — 'Tis the shrine 
Where troop the household pilgrims, Thought, 
Desire, 
Crowned Love, and Memory, and golden Mirth ; 
And wreathed around the hearthhead, O divine ! 
The thing of life and wonder men call fire, 

Than which no creature lovelier walks the earth.'* 

'Twas thus he spoke of spirit. He had tried 
The deeps where it abides and seen from thence 
Outward on life its course and consequence, 

And how on its free pinions all things ride. 

He built his house where unseen workers plied 
Their lucky tasks below the realms of sense ; 
Their tracks ran to his door, and his from thence 

Made forth to theirs fair pathways unespied. 

In part he knew — not wholly yet enough 
To say how near and natural to our tongue 
Is that far-sought-for word that sets us free — 

Free thoughts, free hands, to work the magic stuff 
From which all worlds are made, all lives are 
sprung — 
The word we mean but say Simplicity. 



friendship's crown of verse 35 

PARADISAL GUARDS 

A thousand mimic snakes did leap and fret 
In arcs of silver down the bright lagoon, 
Shed on the water by the laughing moon 

And banked with cedarn shadows black as jet. 

*'0 what surpassing loveliness ! And yet 
Were son of earth to paint it thus, how soon 
Convention's oaf would tramp with blundering shoon 

Blind over all this beauty ! '* Sadness met 

With rapture in his voice ! " But nature's end 
Works in the sure enchantment and the gin 
Set round the paths to her most glorious show 

Lest uncouth spirits enter to offend. 

As hounds that scratch and whine to be let in. 
Only to stretch and slumber in the glow." 



36 friendship's crown of verse 

THE CORE OF BEAUTY 

Some lives are like a tavern largely planned, 

That marks the world's great crossways, fore- 
designed 

To lodge all men, but which some chance unkind 
Has plucked unfinished from the builder's hand ; 
Gaunt doors by spiders' gusty drapery spanned 

Are there, and walls with moldy tracery lined ; 

Grim corners stuffed with rubbish out of mind, 
And floors by whirling breezes swept and fanned ; 
But in whose sheltered heart are rooms possessed 

By some small household with its cherished store 
Of life and love and things to both most dear. 
And souls whose ruined chambers lodge no guest 

Of nature's glorious train, may keep a door 
To inner beauty rich beyond a peer. 



friendship's crown of verse 37 

FICTION AND TRUTH 

He loved to roam the alleys of romance, 

Through greenwood old, by many a glimmering 

stream 
To slay a scaly dragon in a dream, 

Or with a lumbering giant break a lance ; 

And haply issuing suddenly to chance 
On some old mossy castle all agleam 
With magic sunset and the unearthly beam, 

And catch perhaps a lovely lady's glance. 

By such wild paths romantically spun 

Does truth ofttimes arrive. Let poets bring 
Dragon or dwarf, whatever fancy glean. 

Fairy or fiend, she owns them every one ; 

The wildest shapes that out of dreamland spring 
Somewhere, sometime, the living world has seen. 



38 friendship's crown of verse 

THE KINGDOM OF NIGHT 

The sun grows blithe amid the heart of May 
When all the trees are out in richest guise, 
And maiden flowers troop forth beneath gay skies 

And hearts wax merry in the well-loved day. 

Night is another world. There is a sway 
Maintained in dim magnificence, that lies 
Divided by a sunset from our eyes — 

In strangeness, oh what endless leagues away ! 

True heirs are we of two large realms of earth, 
Each alien from the other, both most fair. 
Spread forth for high adventure and romance. 

D ay have we sacked to fill our grief and mirth. 
But who has scaled the Dark King's topmost stair,, 
And from his watchtower stretched the 
conquering lance ? 



friendship's crown of verse 39 

THE DREAM 

Our dreams ofttimes are things of prophecy : 

One faithful vision greets me year by year ; 

It comes and lifts me through thin atmosphere 
As sweeps an eagle in wide liberty. 
Old forests flow beneath me like the sea ; 

Far down the shrunken tracks of tilth appear; 

The mountains roll together ; far and clear 
The cities gleam like toys of faerie. 
How near the planets burn ! What star is this 

Whose streaming fire that tossing cloud illumes? 
Ah, there come voices down the windy streams : — 
'Tis Spirit breaking from the chrysalis, 

The splendid creature clothed with sudden plumes 
Stealing a foretaste of her joy in dreams. 



40 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



FRIENDLY RIVALS 

Come out, Sir Botany, let's go around 

And pay our court to the fresh prince of May ! 

The wind's no more than a young hawk at play, 
The sun is raining gold without a sound ; 
The flowers are forth in troops upon the ground, 

And there'll be plants for you to pluck and flay ; 

So while you specialize their lives away 
I'll woo with love the charm within them bound. 
I know a lodge the striped Trilliums keep. 

Shy mid the birches : — thither will I hie 

And learn by heart-throbs what the head would 
know. 
At sunset-time we'll meet below the steep, 

And tell our tale under the evening sky, 

And mark which one the fairest spoil can show 



FRIENDSHIPS CROWN OF VERSE 



41 



SPRING RAIN 

The soul grows wise that listens to the rain, 
And in its sound rejoices in the night, 
Filled full in every sense with calm delight, 

And soothed away in rapture without pain. 

Now it retreats ! Hush ! there it comes again, 
Accumulating music till the might 
Of its fresh transport trembles at its height — 

To break and throb away with failing strain. 

I know what tender brightness of the grass, 
And what fuU-breath'd satiety of earth 

Shall greet me in the morning when I rise ; 

And I shall laugh to think what deeper glass 

My soul has drained amid the night-long mirth — 
The heart that drinks the midnight rain is wise. 



42 friendship's crown of verse 

A drop of gum upon the time-fed spruce, 
A hundred years and then a flame of flower 
Upon the century-plant. In Love's deep bower 
One cup of rapture — one — a moment's truce 
Amid the clamorous war of sense and use — 
So goes it here ! But where thou art this hour 
Risen out of toil and nature, hast thou power, 
O friend, to drink the unadulterate juice 
All times for every thirst? And are thine eyes 
Fed every hour and always with fresh blooms ? 
Thy balsams, run they balm from every vein? 
And ever when thou wilt canst thou arise 
And wrap thyself about in splendid glooms, 
And drink the joy and freshness of the rain ? 



friendship's crown of verse 43 

WOMAN 

'Tis woman, woman, with us first and last, 

And evermore 'tis woman to the end ! 

'Twas her dear lineaments that first we kenned 
When out of nothing into light we passed ; 
Twas her ideal image that so fast 

Sped forth our feet love's devious ways to wend, 

So far in fantasy without amend, 
So deep amid youth's woe-in-glory cast. 

She is the charm in all the world unique, 
The sole unspoiled, immutable delight, 
The vision still and talisman of age — 
She fires the eye of eld, and all the cheek 

Of time transfigures ; and 'tis she doth write 
Anew love's poem on our life's last page. 



44 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



PAN-MINSTREL 

Behind the world's close- woven drapery, 

Unseen from this strict round wherein we're pent, 
Sits the wild minstrel on his art intent 

Who pipes the music of humanity. 

And now it is a gladsome melody, 
That makes the heart gush joy at every vent ; 
And now it is a lonesome-souled lament 

That shakes the fruit of sorrow from life's tree. 

And sometimes 'tis a trumpet's martial song 
Driving a race to war. More oft a lyre, 

That sings the sun of love down from the sky ; 

And then a frenzy seizes on the throng, 

And men, like moths, rush on the gorgeous fire, 
None save that hidden player knowing why. 



friendship's crown of verse 45 

THE ROSE SPEAKS 

I met a rose beside the forest walk, 
And thus she spoke in musical complaint — 
The pleasant summer wanes as heretofore, 
As heretofore my petals lose their hue, 
And soon shall drop among the forest paths, 
Scattered and blown around 
By every wasteful breeze. 

And yet he does not come, my deep-heart Knight; 
'Tis many weeks since I have seen his face. 
And you can doubtless tell me where he is. 
He had the eyes to see, the lips to praise. 
The spirit and the heart to understand. 
Others have come and gone, — 
Have come and seen and praised — 
Touched into looks and words of frankest love, 
Beholding my imperial array — 
Have come and seen and spoken and are gone; 
But none like him, my wise interpreter. 
Who had the eyes to see and heart to know. 
He knew the inner secret of my birth, 
My growth and perfect life, 
My fragrant gift supreme 
Of beauty never matched by any flower. 



46 friendship's crown of verse 

' Where is he that he does not come ? The winds 
That rack my green pavilion, and break through 
With strong assaults, and with unknightly act 
Ruffle my queenly vesture, and my crown, 
My chief and royal diadem, despoil 
Of some its rarest gems, 
By rankest envy fired, — 

The winds, have they not struck him on the wave, 
Overthrown his craft and sunk his body deep 
And laid it glimmering on its sheeny bed 
Below the smiling falseness of the waves? 
No — for he was superior to these. 
Such knowledge had he. Them he made his slaves 
To push his fearless shallop o'er the lake, 
While he sat grandly smiling at their toil. 
Nor do I think the flood has swallowed him. 
So many charms he had to spoil its power, 
When it was plagued with appetite for men, 
And passion to devour 
As in the elder days, 

When men were feeble, not the gods they are. 
Nor has the red fire burned him that he died, 
Because he held a whip above the fire, 
To tame it when it broke beyond its cage. 



FRIENDSHIPS CROWN OF VERSE 



47 



Alas ! I am afraid purblind disease, 

That blights in time all life upon the earth, 

And knows no difference 'twixt rose and man — 

I am afraid it may have fallen on him. 

It may have smitten him, 

Because it creeps unseen. 

And feeds the hands of Death stretched through the 

world, 
Aiming at desolation. Not men-gods 
Can stand that arm insensate when it strikes, 
Guided by that high Mind 
Which wills and asks no man — 
The Mind we love and yet whose acts we hate. 

*'You stand there wondering 

To hear my voice so faint ; 

But I am dying slow into my grave ; 

And you can tell me plainly ere I go, 

That I may go contented, where he is. 

" O I remember there were two of them 
That used to come together to my realm 
In early summer. Wondrous friends they were, 
And loving comrades. They would come along, 
Shoulder to shoulder, pressing toward rny place, 
Eyes everywhere for beauty as they came, — 



48 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



One vast and dark and hairy as the wolf, 

One lithe and light and eager as the leopard. 

I can recall their very looks and words, 

And what high talk they held 

Of things beyond the rose. 

And they drew near and praised me to my face, 

Till all my nature more divinely blushed. 

Whereat they praised me more — and praise I love 

Each thing that lives by beauty loveth praise. 

Praise is the natural portion of the rose. . . . 

*' My voice did fail me there, 

My voice and memory ! 

Forgive me if a moment I forgot, 

For I am dying softly to my grave. 

Therefore make haste and tell me where he is 

Who so divinely has divined my life 

Next to the one who made it. It was love, 

The secret of all secrets, grew with him, 

Till every flower he read 

By the clear lens of love. 

Oh tell me, you his comrade, where he's gone. 
And what he does away from here so long ! 
For now the iires of August flush the land, 
And he has stayed away so many months : 
And other creatures wonder as do I, 
And miss him as the days pass and he stays. 



FRIENDSHIP S CROWN OF VERSE 



49 



The toad that stumbles sometimes round my roots 

In the hot evenings, taking with his tongue — 

All fire, as is his body all inert — 

The harmful insect things that prey on me. 

The toad he loved, and often spoke of him. 

Calling him Jewel-Eye and Lightning-Tongue, 

Seeing his beauty there 

And not the ugliness. 

As the great Maker made him, thus he saw. 

And the strange snake that trickles through the grass 

Like little rills of water all at once, 

And startles with his motion — him he loved. 

Laughed at the tongue let out like slender flame, 

And at the hiss men hate 

But do not understand, 

Mistaking that for venom which is fear. 

He saw but beauty in him, and the law 

That made him lithe and wonderful of mold 

And graceful and most delicate to glide. 

He called him Glance-o'-Wonder. He would sit 

And watch him for a long time bathe himself 

In sun-showers, coiled upon a gray old stone, 

And gained his confidence and caught his love, 

Until all fear of him had passed away. 

And he became his friend. 



50 



FRIENDSHIPS CROWN OF VERSE 



And watched to see him come 

Large through the foliage, making for my place, 

To which he daily came — but comes no more. 

" But Tve forgotten and have wandered off 

Unwitting from the purpose of my speech. 

More strong I feel the change upon me now ; 

And I must soon be gone, 

Overtaken, changed, turned back, 

Sent groping downward to my hidden root, 

Spell-bound in trance for months amid the mold : 

My court broke up and all my courtiers gone, 

The Violet and the meek Anemone, 

Wood-Apple, and the striped Trillium ; 

The Bee, hot-hearted, and the Dragon-Fly, 

The spring birds and the beasts, all full of life 

And new-year glory — they shall all be gone. 

Shall he not once return, 

Once more before all's o'er, 

And sit within my royal tent of leaves, 

And speak about my going with regret, 

And plan for better times another year. 

When the new Spring comes in ; while I trim up 

My few and fading petal-lamps to light 

The full but farewell banquet of our love .?" 



friendship's crown of verse 51 

' He was a prince," I said, 
And a prince is born to care; 
The way his feet are led 
Is Hke a thought's in air ; 
Sudden his flight and far 
Sometimes to his wide realm's bound 
And his track is the trail of a star 
Soon lost in night's profound ; 
The soul that would hunt his track 
Would even go wide or blind, — 
'Tis a path of mist or a cloud's vain wrack 
Where ride the lords of mind." 



52 friendship's crown of verse 

POSTSCRIPT 

melancholy days that falter by, 

Ye are as ghosts. And ah, the ones to come ! 
I think of what they promise, and am dumb, 

1 dream of them and waken with a cry ; 
For I am given the much-too-seeing eye. 

The mournful vision that beholds the sum 
Of all things vanity, whose chains benumb 
This prisoner of dreams that change and fly. 
But not the sad sweet music of this sleep, 
Nor hollow fantasms boasting that they live. 
Can change this deathless hope sublime in 
chains ; 
Nor stay at last the fierce, strong, joyous leap 
From twilight into sunrise — O forgive, 

If meantime the sad captive once complains 




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